A Very Long Walk

---

Todd had the help of 2 porters and their wagons to haul up the suitcases to the school first thing in the morning. Heather and I elected to sleep in. We had our first solo trip thru Bumala and by the time we made it up to the school, he had most of the work done - we had 8 laptops donated to the school, around 100 t-shirts from a misprint done for Folk Festival, some medical supplies, computer software, pencil crayons, pens, rulers, etc, all in our suitcases for the journey here. It was a relief to finally get rid of everything (we’ve kept back one laptop for the week to do blogging, etc). The looks on Josephine (the headmistress) and Charles’ faces made the 30 hour trip well worth it.

Then we got down to the real task of the day. An organization that Todd knew of asked him to do a project for them a few years ago called the Beatrice Project, and we’ve continued it with each visit that Todd or Cristelle make. Josephine picks 10 of the most needy families and we walk out to their homes and give them 1000 KSh ($15 Cdn). As I’ve mentioned before, sometimes this is equivalent to the majority of a month’s income, in some cases this year, they rely completely on well-wishers, so this goes a long way. Todd figures we walked about 10 km over the 4 hours. It was sunny, hot, dry, I went through almost a full liter of water, and I was sweating it out faster than I could replenish. By the time we ended up at Charles’ house, I was exhausted, sticky, stinky, my back and feet hurt, I was covered in the Kenyan red sand, I was a mess. But it was well worth it. Even though these ladies are dirt poor, we got a chicken each from 2 of them to add to our school coop. We got to try the “illicit brew” (aka moonshine or that Hutterite ‘wine’ I got a few years ago but made of guesss what - corn) from 2 different grandmothers. It felt a little weird when they told us they were going to use the money to buy food, clothes, and expand their business (charity supporting illegal distilling??), but if it helps the kids, I’ll live with that on my conscience 😉 One of our students lives with her 17 year old sister, alone, as both of their parents died over 2 years ago. The sister goes to school at the secondary school, is equivalent to Grade 11, and would like to continue on to become a broadcaster. They live in this tiny hut, the roof leaks, and they have no land to farm or income of any sort, so they depend entirely on the donations of well-wishers as they called them. It was so sad, but they’re doing an amazing job together to do well in school and work towards a better life. One family has 2 boys in our school, both parents are mentally ill, so the older boy has a stall in the market on Saturdays and has to earn enough to buy food for the rest of the week for the family, which also includes their blind grandmother, and a toddler sister, who was a twin but the other girl died of malaria a couple months ago. The burden and worries that these children live with are unimaginable. The fact that they come to school faithfully, study hard on very little food, sometimes only what they get to eat at the school, and can smile and love life astounds me.

Anyways, the day was hard, both physically and emotionally, but I’d do it again in a heartbeat. As we walked back from Charles’ house, which is the same type of structure and only a little bigger than some of our ophans’ homes, with the sun low on the horizon and people walking on dirt paths, greeting each other in Swahili as they passed, it finally hit me that I was actually in Africa. It’s seemed like another place, another world, but I’m finally seeing what I’ve dreamed of for years.

---